


A Moment's Pause

by sixpences



Category: Toki o Kakeru Shōjo | Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixpences/pseuds/sixpences
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leaping into the future- and landing with a crash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment's Pause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sophie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sophie).



Makoto feels her heart jerk like the twist of brakes every time she sees red hair out of the corner of her eye, stands breathing too hard while another stranger walks by without even seeing her; she seizes hold of every decision, every path into the future. She speeds downhill, her bicycle chain rattling, feeling time rush past her ears in a way that's almost familiar.

_I'll keep running_, she whispers, and switches off the light.

"You still miss Chiaki," Kousuke says at lunch one day, the sort of thing that ought to be a question but she knows he doesn't need to ask. Kaho wanders back and forth between their conversation and the book she has propped against her cup.

"I just hope we see him again some time. Soon."

She wishes she could tell them all of it, if only to see if it would ease the huge, heavy ache in her chest, but she can hardly believe it herself some days. The future isn't a place she can visit; there's no map to guide her and no shortcuts to take at a flying leap.

She misses the way he smiled. She misses his stupid shoes.

Kousuke takes her out for a milkshake one afternoon, about two months after. He looks at her levelly across the little table.

"You're hiding something."

"Am not."

"You are." He twists the straw around in his glass so it points at her accusingly. "Has Chiaki called you since-?"

"No." She looks down at her hands clasped on the tabletop. "Not at all."

"Me neither." Kousuke frowns and pushes his glasses up his nose. "I mean, I thought he might just take off one day, but I didn't think he wouldn't even call or write. Actually I'm pretty worried."

She wants to say that she's sure he's okay, except she has no reason to know and anyway she isn't sure at all. He's in the future, and the future is never certain.

Time goes at one speed, in one direction. She gets in late for class, crashes her bike, finds the fridge empty of pudding when she gets home. Kaho pitches and she swings away, watching the ball soar up, up, into the hard blue sky.

One day they're leaving the pitch, Kazuko talking at high speed and Kousuke slinging his arm easily around Kaho's shoulders, and Makoto almost trips over her own trailing shoelace. She props her foot up against the fence to tie it, the others carrying on ahead of her. The cicadas thrum in the trees, slow summer music.

She feels a hand on her shoulder, suddenly, and she loses her balance, falling backwards and-

"Hi Makoto."

Everything stops.

Chiaki smiles, his arm looped around her, holding her up. His hair is startlingly red against the sky. Ahead on the footpath Kousuke is looking over his shoulder, she can hear him shouting something but the blood is thundering in her ears like hours and days crashing past. Chiaki sets her back on her feet.

She stares at him, stares at his slouchy jeans and his shirt open at the neck and his stupid, crappy shoes. She reaches out and touches his hand. It's warm. He's real. She starts to laugh.

"Hi."


End file.
